Joined Chains
by RikadeRika
Summary: It's no mystery that dark times are approaching. Hopelessness and despair surround all who are dragged into the nightmare. "Those who choose to fight become survivors. Those who give up are better off joining the legions of undead." M for language, violence, and other themes. DempseyxOC, TakeoxOC, OCxOC


**Prologue: The Encroaching End or Not?**

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"_We have become rats._"

The joke in their small four-man group was that Takeo Masaki was limited to four words a week due to some vow he took in the past. That wasn't true in the slightest, but it still didn't change the fact that he rarely spoke; most of the time he got around on facial expressions and body language and even if he did talk, he was normally was speaking in his native tongue to himself.

But the words he spoke in clear, simple English were often the most meaningful ones, and these ones were true; they had become the equivalent of rats in the sewers, and the cold of winter didn't make things any more comfortable for them. Often their shelter came in the form of abandoned buildings and often they were damaged because of the Second World War. Well, it was better than sleeping in the woods.

Then there was also their location in the world. At this point in time, the Soviet Union wasn't exactly the friendliest place, especially considering Joseph Stalin was still in control and even the Russian native among them, the drunken fool Nikolai Belinski, wasn't all that welcome here.

"Stalin stabbed me in back and now if I so much as step foot in Moscow, he's sworn to display my head to general public," he said, his voice incredibly slurred beyond recognition. Tank Dempsey, who was smoking at the moment (and so purposefully kept blowing smoke in the general direction of Dr. Edward Richtofen), gave Nikolai a particularly cocky grin as he lit a new one.

"Well, none of us are exactly welcome here either. Given they have bitter feelings towards Germans, Takeo's country kicked their ass once or twice, and for some reason the United States hasn't been on great terms either recently, we're basically as fucked as you are if we're caught."

Nikolai scratched his chin for a moment. "Well, maybe we'll be spared if we were to use Richtofen and Takeo as bargaining chips."

"Excuse me Russian!" Richtofen snapped. He had been doing some particularly important maintenance on his MP40 despite the shadows of the alleyway making it almost impossible to see. "But recall that I'm the one who knows everything about what the hell we're doing!"

"And 'what we're doing' is complete bullshit," Nikolai rolled his eyes. He could see Takeo's contorted expression out of the corner of his eye, the result of his previous comment. He smirked and took a shot from his usual bottle of vodka.

"I have to agree with Nikolai," Dempsey said blowing another crowd of smoke. He turned to Richtofen while stuffing his hands in his pockets and narrowing his eyes. "I still have no fucking clue how I got roped into this whole 'we go into areas that have been quarantined because of an undead epidemic per orders of our governments.'"

"Well, better than seeing entire towns go up in flames because of what you saw at Shi no Numa_, right_?" Richtofen grinned fiendishly. "Screams of agony from women and children, tired soldiers getting torn limb from limb, blood dripping everywhere and-!"

Dempsey punched Richtofen in the jaw. "Fucking get aroused by thoughts of death and destruction and swear to fucking god I'll kick you so hard in your damn nuts you won't ever be able to have kids."

Takeo let out a very loud sigh as the former Nazi and Marine began to throw punches at each other, all while firing insults at each other. He glanced down the alleyway, towards the street lit by lamps. Children were playing in the snow, some men were doing last minute shopping before the stores closed for the day, and a woman shrieked with delight at the sight of her husband returning, dressed in his uniform decorated with a few military awards.

And in all honesty, he could see the street erupting in flames. He was certain the swamp had given him and the others an idea of what was going to happen.

Or maybe, if they worked hard enough, what they could prevent from happening.

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_I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality._

- Frida Kahlo

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**A/N: And that's the end of the prologue.**

**I wanted to put this little author's note in as to talk a little about this story. (I'm going to try and make this as brief as possible.)**

**First of all, original plot of NZ; basically out the window. Majority canon characters, plot devices, locations, and things like that are still here, but other than that…you get the idea.**

**Second: OCs. There are a lot of them and I apologize if you're the kind of person who's not a fan of them.**

**Third: This story (assuming I don't reach a point where I get perpetually stuck and it goes on indefinite hiatus) is going to be **_**long**_** and split into multiple parts so one doesn't have to read through sixty some chapters.**

**And that's about it. Positive reviews means I'll keep going forward with this. See you later!**


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